


Go Not to Lethe

by joonscribble



Series: A Kind of Natural Phenomenon [1]
Category: Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonscribble/pseuds/joonscribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Cloud Atlas Sextet must be published.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Not to Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I most definitely do not own the characters Robert Frobisher or Rufus Sixsmith. They belong to David Mitchell. The ones that appear in this story are the versions brought to life by the Wachowski siblings & Tom Tykwer with the help of Ben Whishaw and James D'Arcy.
> 
> Title is taken from a poem by Keats.

_1936 – Cambridge_

  
  
It had been something of a minor miracle or rather a series of minor miracles that had allowed for the light parcel to now be sitting in Sixsmith’s hands.  
  
His father had been confused at first at his insistence that he be advanced his monthly allowance for the entire term in a matter of days. The confusion had rapidly melted into anger once his father had gotten wind of the reasons and had categorically refused. It had been one thing to pour his hard earned resources into sending his son to Caius. It was quite another for the money to be poured away into funding some “musical enterprise thought up by a disinherited wastrel.” Or so his father had said in their last argument.  
  
In all the years Frobisher had complained bitterly about his pater’s lack of appreciation for anything worthwhile that nicely complemented the man’s oafish cruelty, Sixsmith had listened with a sympathetic, if ignorant ear. A handful of months after Frobisher’s death, standing in front of his own immovable, unsympathetic parent, Sixsmith considered this stone he felt inside his chest where just underneath lay a bed of burning coals was probably how Frobisher had felt all the time when the subject of the elder Frobisher came up.

 

* * *

  
  
Asking Frobisher’s family for the funds was clearly out of the question. The funeral had been a rapid affair and all the money lavished upon it had been in the name of brevity rather than contemplative sorrow. Only blood relatives had been invited. And Sixsmith distinctly did not belong in that category.  
  
Sixsmith wondered if tears were shed. He had met Frobisher’s parents only once during their last year at Gresham’s when he’d traveled with Frobisher back to his home for the winter break. Months after that horrible weekend, when Sixsmith could tell himself he had truly forgiven Frobisher for it, he had tried to imagine his friend growing up in that house. What it must have been like for Frobisher, no doubt bright, impulsive, and over brimming with emotion even more so as a child, to be with a mother who smiled so little and a father who demanded something Frobisher had no hope of ever giving.  
  
Frobisher had asked specifically in his last letter, the one that sat nestled within the strings that tied together the pages of the precious Sextet, that his family not gain control of his one and only creative legacy. Even if the family was inclined to commission a thousand copies, Sixsmith would decline. It was the only thing left of Frobisher’s that he had left to guard as possessively as his friend would have.

 

* * *

  
  
It was later in the evening, the day of the funeral that his brother found him in his rooms, pouring over the manuscript.  
  
“Do you even know how to read that?” asked John. He peered over Sixsmith’s shoulder, taking in the scatter of black notes, the dipping swirls of treble clefs.  
  
Sixsmith nodded, though distressed that he was largely lying. He could follow the rudimentary notes, the switches from major to minor key. But he knew the music he was attempting to hear in his head was faltering, hesitant, and nothing like the way Frobisher had intended. His fingers tapped a rhythm on his knee, trying to pick up the pace. He fought the urge to hum the notes, knowing it would only sound off key. Frobisher had more than once winced theatrically at his lack of vocal prowess.  
  
John cleared his throat. He dragged the extra chair over to the desk before settling awkwardly on it. His elbow scraped along an opened envelope. Sixsmith’s head shot up at the crinkle of paper, the jerking music in his head coming to an abrupt stop. “Sorry,” apologized the younger Sixsmith hastily before carefully settling the slightly bent paper to the sideboard. From his coat pocket he pulled out a padded envelope of his own and slid it toward his brother. “Go on. Open it,” he urged Sixsmith.  
  
Inside the envelope was a slim stack of crisp notes.  
  
Sixsmith blinked at the sum. “John, I can’t accept this.”  
  
“It’s from father,” his brother insisted. “Granted, it’s from father regarding the bit of investment I told him I would do for him.”  
  
“I can’t-“  
  
“It’s only a partial sum,” John explained. “What he’s given that I will invest will more than bring back the returns.”  
  
Sixsmith skimmed his fingers over the money, his eyes falling from the notes to the still scattered pages of the manuscript, the familiar slopes and curves of Frobisher’s handwriting dancing across the pages. Quite suddenly, Sixsmith realized he was crying. Carefully setting the envelope of funds aside, he raised a hand with the intent of rubbing away his tears, but found himself merely dropping his head into it, a terrible wretched sound escaping his lips.  
  
He could practically feel John stiffen beside him, awkward and unsure of what to do. It was a rather tentative hand that clumsily patted his hunched shoulder. “Father won’t know about the money,” John assured, attempting to somehow ignore and yet comfort his brother’s grief. “He won’t notice.”  
  
“He will when the Sextet is released,” Sixsmith murmured, forcing his voice to steady.  
  
The relief from John at this attempt at stoicism was obvious. The hand on his shoulder patted him with greater confidence. “He won’t. He’s a mental midget when it comes to music. We get that from him.”

 

* * *

 

Sixsmith contacted Charles Briars at their college. Briars had been one of the few at Caius who expressed some genuine feeling at the news of Frobisher’s death. The don had once told Frobisher that he had the talent to become a fine composer and a lack of focus that would guarantee it would never happen. Still, he had held a certain fondness for Frobisher’s brand of _joie de vivre_. It was that fondness and a genuine curiosity that propelled him to look over the manuscript Sixsmith brought to him.  
  
Briars sat with it for two hours before agreeing to assist in getting it to the right publishers as long as Sixsmith was willing to fund the expenses. A fresh faced student of Briars’ carefully copied the manuscript at Sixsmith’s insistence to be sent out. The original copy Sixsmith took back with him.

 

* * *

  
  
Carefully, Sixsmith tugged at the string wrapping the flat parcel. The brown paper unfolded, revealing “Robert Frobisher” written in simple, blue lettering, hovering above the more elaborately scrawled script of “The Cloud Atlas Sextet.”  
  
It had taken a great deal of convincing on Briars’ part to get a publisher to agree to record and press a symphony by a complete unknown. In the end, with the only ones who would do it for a reasonable enough price had been a company in Holland. It had taken every penny that John had given Sixsmith plus a substantial cut from his own funds to produce the precious 500 copies. A handful of which would now sit in the very same shop Frobisher had once dragged Sixsmith.  
  
 _“Even a musical dolt such as yourself should own a copy of something by Handel.” Frobisher hastily pulled on his coat, throwing Sixsmith’s faded garbadine in his direction. “We’ll get you one with some vivacity. Perhaps an oratorio. You could play it in your lab and frighten the others into believing you’ve given up science for hedonism.”_  
  
“I’m not certain Sawle’s heart could taken an oratorio,” Sixsmith mused, contemplating the old man’s reaction to the sound of anything beyond the scratching of pencils in the lab.  
  
“Ah, but he would die with such music to guide his immortal soul,” proclaimed Frobisher with a dramatic sigh. Sixsmith laughed as the smaller man clutched at his lapel, tugging him forward.  
  
The needle of the player gently scratched along the black vinyl grooves. The familiar hiss of static filled the room before the first notes of the violins came in.  
  
It was indeed, far removed from what Sixsmith had heard in his mind all those times he had poured over the notes on the manuscript. The death of his lover had not magically opened up a floodgate of knowledge in Sixsmith, tapping at some until now unknown part of his mind that could hear and understand music the way Frobisher could. Listening to the only work Frobisher would ever produce, a sob clogged Sixsmith’s throat. He was no closer to understanding the sharp, manic obsession that would overtake Frobisher when it came to his cherished music, the one and true love that the composer could and did give his entire life for. He inexplicably thought about their last night in Cambridge. About the way Frobisher’s lips had curved into that unique, overwhelming smile when it had been only the two of them in that suite, pretending for at least a few hours that the world outside did not exist. The smile that had grown more rapturous as the night moved on, hurtling towards its end. For Frobisher had always kept one eye toward the end of all things and loved everything that came before all the more for it.  
  
END


End file.
